


Kind Of

by falsteloj



Category: Rules of Engagement (TV)
Genre: Comedy, Courtship, Fake Marriage, Humor, M/M, Romantic Comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-19
Updated: 2013-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-05 04:51:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1089819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falsteloj/pseuds/falsteloj
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Russell tries to convince Timmy that being married to each other doesn't have to be such a bad thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kind Of

**Author's Note:**

> Because, as far as I'm concerned, this whole show was about Russell falling for Timmy.

"So," Russell said, and it felt just as awkward as it sounded, "can you believe Jeff and Audrey are parents?"

"I have had nine months in which to accustom myself to the idea," Timmy began, and though his tone was as haughty as Russell had ever heard it, his nerves were on full display, fingers occupied with shredding a paper napkin to pieces. "What I am having trouble comprehending is the fact we are now," he hesitated, glancing anxiously up at Russell before returning his attention to the napkin, " _married_."

"Yeah," Russell grinned and dropped into the seat next to Timmy. "How about that?"

It was kind of awesome, really, when you thought about it. Timmy was smart, and organized, and so grateful for Russell's sacrifice he was willing to do anything. Probably. And he, well he was willing to take whatever Timmy offered him.

They were made for each other.

Timmy, for a clever dude, was being spectacularly slow on the uptake. "What are we going to say to people?" He asked, and Russell had known him long enough to recognise the undertone of panic. "What am I going to tell my parents?"

"Don't sweat it," Russell said, slouching back into the cushions, letting his hand find Timmy's thigh because, after all, they were married now. "Your parents loved me."

Timmy glared at him and, though he looked about as threatening as a teacup terrier, a not entirely unrelated thought entered his own head.

"What am I going to tell _my_ parents?"

* * *

In the event it wasn't all that bad, or at least it wasn't after he had drained the contents of his bottle of emergency whiskey.

His mother didn't care, at least not enough to ask him about the hows or the whys, or anything of any substance. It was what he had expected. It was his father who went stony silent for long minutes, long enough to make him nervous, and then, finally, he crowed in glee that this meant that no matter who he chose as his next wife, she was guaranteed to be a hundred per cent hotter than Russell's.

Russell could have put the phone down then. In retrospect, he really should have. But he had downed the crisis bottle in his desk drawer to work up the courage to break the news, and before he could think better of it he was telling his dad,

"Timmy's hot. _Smoking hot_. And," he flailed for something, anything else. "And he's my husband, not my wife, so unless you marry a man my husband is always going to be the hottest."

He put the phone down then, triumphant. The triumph lasted one second, maybe two, and then he was groaning, face in his hands. He was such an idiot.

The third bottle really only cemented the sentiment, and the world was spinning kind of violently by the time Timmy finally answered his cell phone.

"Sir, as much as I would love to hear about your latest self-created disaster, I am trying to work."

"You don't need to work," Russell countered, because all Timmy really needed to do was be there, right now, when Russell needed him. "I always wanted my wife to be a kept woman."

He could practically see Timmy fighting between the urge to remind him of his relationship with Liz, and the urge to point out that he was not, and would never be, a woman, kept or otherwise. The latter won out.

Russell let it run its course, the room lurching as he attempted to get up from his desk chair.

"Timmy," he broke in at last, and he was too drunk to care that it sounded more of a high pitched whine than a manly interruption. "Timmy, the floor is falling on me, and I can't see straight, and I told my dad we got married. You're supposed to be here for me. You made a solemn vow, _Timir_."

There was nothing but silence over the line, and Russell decided Timmy must have hung up - just as the floor rose through the air to meet him.

And, right about then, everything went black.

* * *

When he woke, a full blown marching band was stomping about inside his head so purposefully that it took a long moment to work out where he was, and what was happening.

He was in his own bed, he decided, in his own apartment. But there was nobody beside him, and no scent of cheap perfume, so whatever it was he had been doing, it couldn't have been anything Timmy really disapproved of.

The thought of Timmy nudged at something in his memory, something important. And then it all came flooding back, from Timmy walking out on him, to getting married, to ringing Timmy in a drunken mess and telling him to drop everything to come and take care of him.

He groaned then, because his head really hurt, and because making Timmy even angrier with him had not been part of the master plan.

"Sir?"

His head still hurt, just as much, but Russell couldn't help but smile at the sound of that crisp, cultured voice. If he was here, Timmy couldn't hate him half as much as he made out he did.

"You know we're married now; you should probably try calling me Russell."

When there was no response Russell risked cracking an eye open, just to make sure the voice hadn't been the product of alcohol poisoning. He'd been there before.

"Here," Timmy was there, in front of him. Then he was closer still, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and helping him into a sitting position. "Drink this. It should help you feel better."

He did, and though it was foul, a complete and total affront to the tastebuds, it did make him feel slightly more human. Timmy watched, the furrow in his brow smoothing out into a look of satisfaction.

"Do I want to know what happened last night?" Russell asked at last, sinking back against his pillows.

Timmy took the glass, their fingers brushing for the briefest of moments, and said, "I found you passed out on the floor of your office. Did," he paused, unsure. "Did you really tell your father about us?"

His father was a shallow, lecherous womanizer, and Russell had spent his whole life trying to make the guy proud by being just like him.

"Yeah." Russell sighed, wincing as yet another unwanted memory came back to him. "I told him you were just as hot as any wife he's ever had, and I meant it."

"I'm not your wife," Timmy reiterated, but when Russell glanced over at him he looked pleased, cheeks slightly flushed and his glasses in his hands. He looked younger without them, Russell thought. Like Russell imagined he had looked at Oxford. He bet they got up to all kinds of freaky Harry Potter shit at that place; he'd seen a photograph of Timmy in his undergraduate gown.

"Does this mean I'm forgiven?" Russell asked then, suddenly desperate for an answer. "I need you, Timmy."

He hated being honest, almost as much as he hated being serious. It made him feel exposed and vulnerable.

"You had a microchip implanted in my arm. I am not a dog, Sir - Russell."

The sound of his name made him feel warm inside, or maybe it was whatever had been in the glass Timmy had given him. Either way, Timmy didn't sound quite as bitter as he had the last time he had brought it up. That had to be a good sign.

"You went away and wouldn't tell me where you were going," Russell countered, because Chicago might as well have been Timbuktu when he had no idea where to begin looking. "You might not have come back to me, and Radha could never get your hand waving right."

Timmy swallowed, audibly, and Russell closed his eyes at the sudden wave of exhaustion. He had been honest twice in as many minutes. Timmy's little restorative had really done a number on him.

He wasn't going to get an answer, he told himself eventually. He was going to have to get used to telling people he had an estranged husband, as well as an insane mother, a cradle snatcher of a father, and half the female population of New York hiding in his closet.

"I just need some time," Timmy said, finally. "Right now, I don't know what I'm feeling."

* * *

Russell did his best to leave Timmy alone, he really did. But it was difficult, because when Timmy was there everything was simple. He was the organ grinder, and Timmy was his dancing monkey.

Or something like that. He didn't want to get bogged down in the detail.

When Timmy wasn't there, on the other hand, everything was weird and confusing. Because he had no choice but to think about Timmy, and to reflect on the way he acted toward him. It wasn't friendly pranking, or workplace ribbing, or any of the other things he liked to pretend it was.

It was just an extension of the Russell Dunbar he had been in grade school, tugging at Macy Gough's pigtails in the hope she would turn around and notice him.

He wanted Timmy to notice him, he could acknowledge that much. He wanted Timmy to think about him, constantly, and to be driven half mad with the distraction. He wanted Timmy to come to him, and beg, so he could laugh and turn him away, and tell everyone about it.

When it was late at night and there was no girl to warm his bed, and a few times, maybe, when there was a girl, he had no choice but to admit the truth to himself, just to get the voice in his head to be quiet.

He wanted Timmy to want him - the same way he wanted Timmy.

He didn't think it often, or at least he hadn't when he had still been clinging to what had remained of his sanity. But when the thought did creep in it always did its best to leave him somewhere between desperate and humiliated. Like the time he had bucked, half crazed, under the ministrations of a gorgeous dark-haired Italian not because she was beautiful, though she was, or her technique was expert (though it was), but because every sound she uttered brought to mind Timmy, and the way her words had turned him on, delivered via Timmy's received pronunciation.

Timmy had been sleeping on the sofa in the other room, well within earshot, and Russell had come like a freight train, imagining Timmy touching himself, in time with his own movements.

The memory only served to make everything harder - and he wasn't ashamed that he was immature enough to snicker at his own choice of wording - so that he squirmed uncomfortably in his seat when he was meant to be working, calling Edward in for no reason other than to be annoying, and to distract himself from thinking about Timmy.

It never worked, not for long at any rate, and Russell took to maudlin sighing, because if was going to have to play the waiting game, he could at least look dark and brooding while he was doing it.

His father rang at the end of the week, to tell him that having a gay son was a great chat-up line with liberal, experimental types, and Russell was torn between relief at the truce, and regret that it was an angle which had never occurred to him.

He ought to go out and try it, was his first thought, and his own lack of interest was staggering. He had it bad, real bad. And Timmy still wasn't even speaking to him.

The guys, for their part, never seemed to tire of mocking him, and as the weeks passed Russell grew more and more agitated because he was used to getting regular action, and to not having to worry about anything he said or did, because Timmy was usually there to save him from his own stupidity.

"So tell me," Jeff began over coffee and fries at the diner, "is Tiny Tim an accurate nickname?"

Adam sniggered, helpless, and Jeff's expression buckled, under the strain of trying to keep a straight face. They both thought they were so hilarious. Russell picked miserably at his food and repeated, for what felt like the thousandth time,

"Not that kind of marriage, remember?"

"It kind of is," Adam said, in a terrible impersonation of his own delivery.

Jeff laughed, like it was the funniest thing he had heard since Brenda wetting herself, and Russell must have reached breaking point because instead of laughing along, or feigning apathy, he found himself saying,

"Alright, yeah, what if I told you that it was that kind of marriage? What if I told you that me and Timmy have been working our way through the entire Kama Sutra, and the only reason he's not here right now is that I don't trust myself to keep my hands off him?"

Jeff deadpanned, "First thing I'd say is, I knew it. Second thing I'd say is please, _please_ , don't share any of the details."

Adam frowned. "Is that even possible? I mean, aren't some of those positions kind of awkward?"

Russell shook his head. Why did he bother?

"Hey," Jeff said, an idea dawning on him. "Are you being serious?"

"Yes," Russell said, with all the scorn he could muster, and took his frustration out on his dinner, stabbing at a fry with unwarranted viciousness. "You know, if it weren't for the fact Timmy wasn't even answering my phone calls, we'd be perfecting the suspended congress right now."

"Got you," Jeff said, oblivious to the sarcasm. "Relegated to the dog house, I know how that feels."

Adam nodded, sympathetically. "I'm here for you."

Not even banging his head against the table could stop the one way train to Loonyville he appeared to have boarded.

* * *

Following yet another round of mocking the guys actually came up trumps, imparting supposedly surefire methods of clawing their way back into their respective spouse's good books. It wasn't that it was particularly good advice, wouldn't have been even if Timmy had actually been a PMSing woman, but Timmy was still letting all his calls go through to voicemail, and it wasn't like he had any better ideas.

In short, he had nothing to lose, aside from his dignity - and he had never concerned himself with that, not particularly.

First he tried the bouquet of flowers, or at least he got Edward to, instructing the man to send a dozen red roses to Mr Charles' offices. In return all he got was a terse email, asking him to,

> Please desist in humiliating me at my place of work.
> 
> Though I do not suppose for a moment that this entreaty will make any difference. It never did during the four years I worked for you.
> 
> T. Patel

Russell could read between the lines, he wasn't an imbecile. He called Edward in and got him to arrange for another two dozen roses to be sent to Timmy's apartment.

"It's definitely working," he told Edward as soon the man was off the phone to the florist. "I feel like a modern day Romeo."

Edward only rolled his eyes at the revelation and, in response to Russell's raised eyebrow, said, "I could explain, but there's really no point. You wouldn't learn anything."

That left him with nothing to do but twiddle his thumbs, and wait for Timmy to ring him, probably misty eyed and swooning, and beg him to come over and put an end to all this torturous waiting. Six o'clock came and went, and then seven, and finally, at half ten, he couldn't take it any longer and text Timmy to ask if he had received the flowers.

Timmy's reply took an hour, and consisted of three letters and a period. It wasn't the effusive thanks he had been expecting.

'So,' he tried again, 'do you want me to come over and put the kama in your sutra?'

His phone buzzed only minutes later.

'While I congratulate you on finding a line which is both repellent and mildly offensive, I really must decline your offer.'

Russell frowned, and before he had chance to mouth the words through more than once his cell buzzed again.

'To summarize in a word of one syllable: no.'

And there went all his plans for the evening.

Adam's suggestion of a morning delivery of coffee and pastries, while it started off promising, didn't go over any better.

His desk phone rang, right on time, and he snatched it up even as Timmy demanded, without preamble,

"Sir, are you actually trying to kill me?"

"It's not Sir, it's Russell, remember? And I know a Russell deficiency is serious, but I don't think it's life-threatening. I'm available for emergency treatment though. Any time."

He pretended that he couldn't hear Edward, laughing to himself on the other side of his office door.

Timmy sighed, audibly, and said more calmly, "I maintain a strict gluten-free diet. You know this."

He did. Apparently he just hadn't thought to pass the knowledge onto Edward before he placed the order. It was Edward's fault, he thought churlishly. Timmy would have made a point of asking about special dietary requirements. That was just the kind of person he was.

With that disaster behind him he was ready to accept Jen's advice. It couldn't be any worse, he figured. He was wrong, of course. It was terrible.

"Express yourself creatively," she said. "Use art to say what you're having trouble articulating."

Timmy refused to so much as acknowledge the end result, though Russell couldn't work out where it was he had gone wrong. If a sepia toned dick selfie wasn't a creative way of telling Timmy he was hot for him, he didn't know what was.

In the end it was Audrey who took matters into her own hands - albeit, sadly, not in a literal sense - tricking him into a visit with the aid of Jeff's cell phone and the promise of enough booze and bootleg porn to make him forget all about pompous ex-assistants with made-up names like Timir.

"You're supposed to be visiting girlfriends," was his opening line when Audrey was the one to open the door. "You know, with the shopping, and the talking, and the pillow fights in the frilly underwear."

Audrey just glared at him, and Russell took the hint and shut his mouth. Jeff hadn't been lying. The mix of sleep deprivation and pregnancy hormones really had turned her into a she-demon ten times more terrifying than anything she had ever achieved previously.

"You need to be honest with him, let him know what you're feeling," she advised, once she had him cornered, and he was about to interject, because that was what the whole creative expression episode had been about. There was a manic glint in her eye though, and baby sick on her shoulder. It was enough to make him think better of it. Satisfied he wasn't about to interrupt, Audrey continued,

"Just tell him you love him."

Russell scoffed. Shook his head, and pointed at himself, and scoffed all over again.

"I am not in love with Timmy."

The idea was ridiculous. He wanted Timmy in his bed, sure, it wasn't that big a deal. Over the years he had done just about everything a man of his sexual prowess could be expected to have had a go at, along with a few extras, just for good measure.

And he wanted Timmy back in his life, that just stood to reason. Anybody who had been subject to Edward's lax work ethic would have given their right - okay, left - hand for Timmy to come back and work for them.

But love? That was crazy talk.

Audrey patted his knee, all motherly, and said,

"Of course you're not. You just keep telling yourself that."

"I will."

"Knock yourself out."

They stared it out, like the leads in a bad B movie, and he would have won if the baby hadn't started crying and forced him to make a run for it. Two against one. It hadn't even been a fair challenge.

* * *

Yet another week went by of Timmy ignoring him. Another week of Edward's too obvious amusement - he was the boss, he was the one who was supposed to do the sniggering - and another week of Jeff's too knowing smirking.

"That's how it is when you're married," he said. "You've gotta work for it."

"I could lend you Mambo," Adam offered, with so much gravitas he could have been talking about the playboy mansion. "Nothing says love like a trained bird."

"I don't love him," Russell argued, and wondered why it wasn't really true that looks could kill.

"Uh-uh," Jeff said and winked at Adam, like he was channeling Audrey, "you just keep telling yourself that."

It was a relief to get home, at least at first. And then it was kind of depressing, because he had nothing to do but mope, and drink, and play '[To Be With You](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1pVq6grvTI)' over and over on the stereo. It was about the seventh run through when he retrieved Timmy's favorite gray cardigan, and totally didn't sniff at it, or stroke it, or do anything else so weird it was likely to get his mugshot on the website of the New York City Police Department.

Again.

Finally he gave in, and stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom to tell his reflection, "I _am_ in love with Timmy."

When the world didn't fall off its axis, he tried it out, just to see what the words looked like.

"Timmy, I love you."

His reflection stared back at him, bewildered.

Russell leaned his forehead against the cold glass for a long moment. He didn't know when he had become so pathetic.

He hit rock bottom after that, sitting on the floor as he worked through one sheet of ruled A4 paper after another, each attempt less likely to get him inside Timmy's pants than the one before it. He wrote about Timmy's eyes, and Timmy's accent, and the expression he got when he was really angry, like he didn't know whether to scream or stamp his foot in frustration. It was kind of adorable.

Then the floodgates were opened, and he wrote about Timmy's hands, and Timmy's organizational skills, and some of the less objectionable things he had been doing with his cardigan. He wrote about the night with Sophia, and the times he had almost asked, and how Rhada had only ever been a substitute. He supposed to someone with Timmy's brains that last didn't even need saying.

He wrote serious things, and stupid things, and when he came round in the morning it was to the sickening knowledge that he had thought it a sensible idea to sweep it all into one unwieldy pile and deliver it to the post table of Timmy's apartment block personally. At least if he had mailed it there was a good chance it could have got lost forever in the inner workings of the US Postal Service.

For once he didn't ring Timmy, to pester him with questions over whether or not he had received his latest attempt at a peace offering. Timmy was probably going to change his number anyway. And his locks. Maybe even the password on his Facebook page. Russell would sure miss that insight.

He hauled himself into work, scarcely managed a wise crack for the head receptionist, and didn't even try to come up with a line for Edward. Instead he sat behind his desk, staring at nothing. If he gave up the very last shreds of his self-respect he could almost hear Timmy's polished vowels coming from the outer room. In fact - he barely had a moment to process that they _were_ Timmy's polished vowels, before the man was in his office, looking as stoic and unflappable as ever, bar the goofy grin spread across his face.

"Did you mean this?" Timmy asked, gesturing at the stack of papers before laying them on his desk. "All of this?"

Russell pushed a hand through his hair, trying for nonchalance and a look that had less of an 'I was too depressed to look for a comb this morning' vibe about it.

"I might have done. I mean, yes. Yes. Except for that thing with your cardigan."

Timmy smiled still wider. "It's alright."

"It was only the one time," Russell offered, mind not quite caught up with the fact that Timmy wasn't there to tell him of his intention to file for a restraining order.

"I don't care. You can keep it."

"What are you doing here?" Russell asked, before he said anything even more incriminating. 

"Isn't it obvious?"

He swallowed, all the blood in his body making a rush for either his cheeks or other, more southernly, parts of his anatomy at the look on Timmy's face. Still Russell hesitated, just in case it was a trick question. He hadn't waited this long, suffered through all this self-discovery, only to fall at the final hurdle. 

Timmy was the one to make the first move and, of everything Russell had imagined his offer of a green card marriage leading to, Timmy being the one to take the initiative in anything remotely sex related was probably the very last thing he had envisaged. Not that he was complaining, far from it, and when Timmy would have pulled back Russell pulled him closer, not knowing or caring if Edward was still on his lunch break. Timmy's kiss was reserved at first, all that repressed passion the Brits were so famous for, and then it wasn't reserved at all, Timmy's fingers mussing his hair up so bad there was no way of knowing he had never bothered to fix it in the first place.

"We could have been doing this weeks ago," Russell accused when Timmy eventually did put some distance between them. "It's a wonder I haven't gone blind," he added, and wriggled the fingers of his right hand.

Timmy's expression was torn between a smile and exasperation, and when Russell reached for his hand, stroked his thumb across Timmy's skin, the smile won out, making Russell's insides squirm and his heart hammer. He really had fallen like a sledgehammer.

"I didn't think you were serious," Timmy said, and it was as though he could read Russell's mind about the inescapable nature of physical reactions. "Oh, I had no difficulty believing you were interested in engaging," he explained, and to his credit the reddening of the tips of his ears was barely noticeable, "in sexual conduct with me. What I didn't think plausible was the idea you wanted more than that."

Russell didn't know why. He wouldn't have tried anywhere near as hard if all he had wanted was to get his leg over. To Timmy all he said was, 

"So, you forgive me?"

Timmy gave him a small smile, kind of shy, kind of wicked - a sight Russell thought he could quite easily get used to - and leaned in close to whisper in his ear, breath hot and promising,

"Actually, Sir, I think I love you."

**Author's Note:**

> As ever, feel free to chat / hit me with prompts over on Tumblr [@serenwib](http://serenwib.tumblr.com/) or Twitter [@falsteloj](https://twitter.com/falsteloj). :)


End file.
